Content Marketing Defined Ideas – SCCMH [Podcast 104]

Transcription:

Podcast 104 – Content Marketing Defined – Ideas

Jim Edwards: Hey everybody, Jim Edwards here and welcome to another edition of the sales copywriting content marketing hacks podcast.

I’m your host along with my trusty co-host and Podcast Producer, Mr. Stew Smith.

Hey, Stew.

Stew Smith: Hey, Jim.

Jim Edwards: And today we’re gonna be talking about content marketing.

But it’s not what you think, because we’ve talked about content marketing in the past, but there are some new rules.

There’s a new sheriff in town when it comes to content marketing.

And we’re going to talk about the keys to content marketing in today’s world.

So Stew, start us off. What in the world are we doing today?

Stew Smith: Well, first of all, I just thought it’d be a cool little segue to go from talking about how do you get content?

And then how do you help with content marketing?

Right?

How what are some good guidelines to follow, and some good examples to follow with the idea of marketing your content.

So first, let’s do this. Let’s define content marketing.

I found this definition from Content Marketing Institute,

Jim Edwards: Well, there’s an institute it must be legit.

Stew Smith: Must be legit, right? It’s just a website.

But anyway, content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

Jim Edwards: So some chucklehead that works in the corporate world forever wrote that, obviously, can I give you my definition?

Stew Smith: I’d love it.

Jim Edwards: My definition of content marketing is creating cool content consistently for your target that your target audience is interested in, that you use to prove your expertise and to build a following, that you can ultimately turn into money, by having people buy your stuff or buy other stuff through your affiliate link, because they know you like you and trust you.

That’s why that’s what it is.

That’s my definition.

Stew Smith: Yeah. I would also say that content marketing, is providing your audience some valuable tool or information, or I hate to use it, tips and secrets and strategies.

But just something that, you know, just like, “Oh, that’s a good idea.” Right?

Jim Edwards: And in bite size chunks too.

Stew Smith: Yeah, with that.

Yeah, without necessarily selling anything.

Jim Edwards: Right. 

Stew Smith: Yeah. But you’re creating a world in which people are starting to trust you for your information, because it’s sound and they’re be willing to buy from you later.

Jim Edwards: Yes. Isn’t that what I said?

Stew Smith:  Yes, I’m just saying in a different way. I’m just giving my definition.

Jim Edwards: We need to create the Jim and Stew dictionary.

So I think the biggest thing, though, is that most people try and think of content marketing is that it’s, it should immediately like you said, it should it should lead immediately to the sale.

And that’s not, the that’s not the purpose.

The purpose of content marketing is to build a relationship, to build a trusted relationship and to be viewed as a trusted source of information that’s specific to something that they’re interested in, or something that they care about.

It can’t just be information in general, it’s got to be around a specific area.

So for me, it’s about copywriting, selling, product creation, book publishing, writing, all that at all stuff. That’s sales copywriting content marketing, content, you know, that’s, that’s ultimately what it all has come back to you, because that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 24 years.

And so with you, it’s fitness and tactical fitness, but it’s also business stuff because you’re teaching the things you’re doing in your tactical fitness business as well.

Stew Smith:  True.

Jim Edwards:  So I, but the number one thing is that it’s got to be something that your people are interested in, and it’s something that they think they’re going to get value from that they can use in their own, in this case business but or in their fitness or whatever that area of expertise.

The only reason they’ll pay attention to you is if they think that they’re going to get something that they can use, just like you said, a tool, a tip information, resources, validation, inspiration, all of these things, that it’s, you’re serving a purpose in their life, and if you’re not, then you’re quickly discarded.

Stew Smith:   I would agree.

You want to hear my number one content marketing tool that I use every week?

Most important one most important one for me.

Jim Edwards:  What is it?

Stew Smith:  It is personalized attention, like answering people’s questions, or, or comments, whether it’s an email or it’s a DM or I am whatever, however they responded to me to answer them personally, but I turned that into an ask stew article.

So now it’s not only content, it is content marketing, because I’m, I’m answering one person’s questions sending it out to the masses.

Jim Edwards:  Yeah. And so you’re leveraging it.

So you have you give somebody a personalized answer, but you do it in such a way that it’s, it’s like you’re creating that answer for your avatar, and your avatar being your ideal customer, and then, therefore, you share it with all your customers, and a large percentage of them, or a certain percentage of them are going to be able to get the, get the benefit of that.

So it’s a one to one and then automatically turns into a one to many.

That’s smart, that’s called leverage Stew.

Stew Smith:  Thank you.

Also, crowdsourcing is a great content marketing tool.

Because you’re actually engaging your audience in a way that you’re not selling them anything.

You’re just saying, “Hey, what do you want to hear?” Or “What do you recommend?”

Jim Edwards:  Right.

Stew Smith: Right?

And it just engages your audience in a way that once again, develops trust, develops a relationship.

Jim Edwards:  And it paves the way for the sale later to because they’re like, “Hm, I wonder what Steve’s working on.”

See, I can see the pattern now, though, because Stew asked questions, and then little things show up in the workouts, he experiments on people, and then he writes a book.

Stew Smith:  That is true. Everybody is my guinea pig.

Jim Edwards:  There you go.

So that’s smart.

So, I think the other thing is that content marketing is not and should not always be about just your products, like everything is only your product, you have to teach people, but do it in such a way that they’re just naturally going to see, it just has to make sense.

Like, if you started teaching about at home jewelry making it wouldn’t make any sense.

But you’re talking, you’re getting, you know, you, you about fitness and tactical fitness and all that stuff, it makes sense that you’ve started talking about mobility, you started experimenting with yoga and other things like that, it’s an offshoot of the central theme that is, that is you.

And I think that’s, that’s important as well.

If everything is always just a blatant pitch for your stuff, it doesn’t work.

But if you do it right, people will be asking you like, “Hey, well, what tools do you have to help me do this?”

And it’s a subtle balance that is learned as much by observation of people who are good at it and doing it yourself to find that right balance.

Stew Smith: Yep.

Content Marketing, what one word that we both used in our definition, Jim, was consistency.

Because you just have to be consistent with it, because if you’re not doing that once a month, you know some form of content marketing, it is less effective than your weekly or some form of daily, getting the information out there in some way.

Jim Edwards:  Now, somebody just asked is PLR cheating when it comes to content marketing.

PLR is private label rights.

And to a large degree, yes, it is cheating because it’s not unique.

And in the end, when you’re doing content marketing, what separates you from everybody else is your spin, your interpretation of information.

PLR, private label rights stuff is usually just information.

What people get from you with your content.

Marketing is hopefully knowledge, and knowledge is digested information.

It’s information that gets matched up with your experience, your interpretation, just everything. Your whole frame of reference, combined with the information, is what knowledge is.

And knowledge is continually growing and expanding and changing and evolving.

That’s a that’s a word that Stew likes to use a lot, evolve.

Stew Smith:  I do.

Jim Edwards: It’s evolving.

And so it’s, in anything PLR is you cheating yourself and you cheating other people of that mastery, that is what people are hungry for.

Any chucklehead can go get PLR and throw it up and build a superficial following of people who just know less than they do. But if you want to create a deep meaningful relationship with a group of people, you need to build your knowledge and be a student, be a reporter, be the expert, and do all the things we’ve talked about, because that’s in the end, the only thing that makes you unique, valuable and worth paying attention to.

Plus, if you have some sort of epic beard that comes in handy, too, when you’re falling down in any of those other areas.

Stew Smith:  I would agree, sir.

I’m reading content, or sorry, reading people’s comments here.

Jim Edwards:  Okay.

Anything else we should talk about when it comes to content marketing?

I think the big thing is with consistency and we talked about this in the pre-show is making sure that you have a balance of, making sure you have a consistent flow of ideas and creation for your content, preferably doing something every single day.

But then spending a lot of time with the promotion of that content, with the distribution of that content.

Because if you don’t, it’s like creating the world’s most perfect Billboard and then burying it in your basement, it doesn’t do you any good to have it down in the basement, you got to put it out by the highway.

And you can’t, if you own a gas station in Dubuque, and you put your billboard on the highway in Miami, you’re not going to get very many customers, you’ve got to put your billboard in front of the right people. And that means you know, doing your research.

That means building up a presence on social media and building up your email list, building up a relationship with people who have followings as well so you can do trades and interviews and link to each other.

All kinds of good stuff.

So that’s, in fact, if you really want to get down to it, if it’s content marketing, you are a marketer who promotes your content, not the other way around.

Because if you really want to make strides, you got to be as good or better at the marketing of your content as you do with the creation, consistent creation of it.

Stew Smith:  Very good.

And you have to do it in a way where your audience trust you and learn something from you, then they will most likely buy from you in the future.

Jim Edwards:  Right, if you have something they’re interested in.

Now, Voitech just asked an interesting question.

He said consistency, should it change with time so at the beginning more often than then slow down a bit?

So at the beginning an article or other content once per day, and later, three to four per week, including means and other.

So I think what he’s asking is about maybe with a with an email list or something.

And a lot of people say, Oh, you should email them every day, and then you drop off to every other day, and then you drop out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that’s Bs, okay?

When it comes down to is you got to stay on people’s radar with value.

Would I email my list every single day me, probably not. But we email our list at least three or four times a week.

The key is not how many times you email them, but how valuable the content is when you do email.

And you can do a lot more on social media, because hardly anybody sees your stuff.

So posting a couple three times a day on social media is not a big deal because most people aren’t going to see your stuff.

So I would say that it’s just create value, get into a rhythm, pay attention to the results that you’re getting with the crowd that you’re targeting, and then dial it up and dial it down, and just find the sweet spot for you and for them and it’s just it’s that’s the know-how aspect of it.

And know-how, by the way is knowledge combined with action. Anybody can get information. Anybody can grow, you know, grow their knowledge, but know-how is where you want to be.

I’ll give you a quick example.

Think about your mom.

All right, my mom’s a great, a great cook.

Typically, what happens is, mom starts out with a recipe at some point, her mother gives it to her or, you know, an aunt or a friend.

And so the first time mom makes something with the recipe, it takes a while.

There’s stuff all over the kitchen, and it’s like, and dinner starts with the preamble of “I’m trying to something new. I hope you like it.”

At least that’s how it worked at my house. And then if everybody’s like, “Dang, this is pretty good.”

Let’s like my mom never made anything I didn’t like.

So I was like, “Yeah, this is awesome. You can make this again.”

And then knowledge.

Mom says, “Okay, I’m gonna make this again.”

And she makes it again, she’s got the recipe, but sort of looking at it.

And there are half as many bowls and plates and other stuff made.

And then at some point, that recipe that knowledge turns into know-how, where I’m like, “Mom, can we have meatballs tonight?”

She’s like, ‘Yeah, yeah, we can do meatballs tonight.

Okay, give me this, give me that. Give me that, okay to do this, and you roll them like this, and then put them on here, and I’m gonna do this.”

There’s no recipe out.

There’s no thought there’s just okay, now we do this, then we do this, then turn on the oven for this.

And then we got to make the sauce.

And we got to do this, all this.

And we have meatballs.

And it’s made in like, one 10th the time, it’s better than it ever was the first time it was done.

And it’s like, “Man, I love meatballs”.

And I mean, I’m not I’m thinking about my mom’s meatballs, because they’re amazing.

But know-how, ultimately, is what people want from you.

Because they know, if you know, if you have the know-how then you, if anything, you have to then deconstruct it, you know it so well, that you have to consciously put yourself back in their place to show them what needs to get done, because you just gonna run off and do it.

But know-how, that’s really from a content, people want to learn from people that have the know-how they don’t get the information anywhere, let me Google that for you.

Knowledge means you’ve used the information and gotten the results, you know, maybe once, that makes you an internet guru. And know-how is the person who just know, can look at what you’re doing, and know, “Okay, this this, this is not right, move this over here. Try this do all this other stuff.”

And that’s… I don’t know why I went off on that tangent but that’s ultimately why people will pay attention to you if you’re doing content marketing, because you have to know-how.

Stew Smith:  I don’t have anything to add to that Jim.

Jim Edwards:  Okay.

Stew Smith:  That’s good.

You’ve answered all of my content marketing questions.

Jim Edwards:  Well, cool.

We’ve got two and a half minutes left.

Stew Smith:  Yeah.

So we did have a question here. How do you promote a nonprofit to get money?

Jim Edwards:  Yeah, you promote, that’s easy.

Who’s your target audience?

Target audience is not the nonprofit.

The target audience is the typical person who contributes to that nonprofit.

What does that person get in the way of a desire, satisfied or problem solved by contributing to that nonprofit?

So when you’re promoting that, you don’t promote the fact that it’s, you know, like, I know somebody that creates opportunities for people to do fundraisers with coffee.

And they originally were focused on people who liked coffee.

And that didn’t do really well.

But when they started focusing on people who wanted to help a specific charity, and they like coffee, so by doing something you’re doing anyway, you’re able to support a charity and get some of the, you know, whatever they that free range, I’m thinking of chickens.

But what’s it what’s it called when everybody’s in a, It’s, there’s a phrase that they use a lot where the people who grow the coffee and pick the coffee are included in the whole deal, and you know, the thing I’m talking about it’s, it’s a phrase that indicates it’s equitable for everybody involved, they’re not exploiting the workers.

Some, somebody will know what I’m talking about.

So that’s, got it, It’s on the tip of my tongue, the thing but, but anyway.

As soon as you focus on the payoff for the person of supporting the charity, that’s when you’re going to, cooperative, that’s what it is.

That’s not sharecropping. Dude. That’s not…

My God! We get shut down by Facebook.

Fair Trade, I think is what it is, fair trade something but they’re gonna get shut down by Facebook for just even saying the words sharecropping.

I’ve totally lost my train of thought.

Oh, the big thing though is that you got to focus on the payoff for the person that’s coming off with the money.

So you build a bridge between what the charity does, and how they do it, and the payoff in the feelings for the person that you’re soliciting the money for.

So you remember, when we were kids, TV every Saturday, there were ads on around cartoon time for care, that showed the little kid in Africa with the fly in his mouth?

And a mom or somebody would see that and be like, “Dude, we got to give 10 bucks a month, we got to do something to support this, because I can’t imagine a child living like that.”

So you’re given the money, in order to, you know, in order to make yourself feel better to feel like you’re solving a problem.

The big mistake people make is not focusing on that and focusing on what the charity does.

That’s like we talked about in sales copy of, talk about what it, what it does not what it is.

Got to focus on the result. So, a play on their emotions.

Stew Smith:  Hey really quickly.

It should be a quick answer for you is from Steven, I think one of my buddies, he’s a firefighter, I’m

pretty sure.

Is there a magic number of followers before committing the time to creating a course?

Jim Edwards:  I don’t think so, if you know there’s a market for don’t, in other words, don’t create a course and go look for a market.

Find the market in need of a course.

And when you create that course, I would do it to as much of a market as you have, to as much of a following as you have, see if people will sign up for it.

And then once you’ve got the course, go find the people who’ve already got the ear of that audience and offer them a 50% commission to sell your course to their list.

That’s how I built my business.

For the first five years of my business, I never bought an ad.

So that was how I did it.

That was how I built up my business,

Hugely big league, and really, really fast.

Stew Smith:  Right

Jim Edwards:  So that’s what I would tell you but don’t make the mistake of making a course and searching for an audience, find the audience and make a course for them.

So… Cool.

Well, thank you everybody for joining us for the sales copywriting content marketing hacks podcast, this has been a lot of fun.

Go do some content marketing.

If you’d like some help with your content marketing, make sure you are a member of our group on Facebook, the sales content, sales copywriting content marketing hacks podcast or group.

Make sure that you also pick up a copy of my book Copywriting Secrets, which one of the things we talked about is the difference between content and copy is nil.

And if you want to get in great physical shape, where should they go, Stew?

Stew Smith:  There’s about that. Stew Smith fitness.com

Jim Edwards:   I thought you gonna tell them to come to your house in Severna Park, but Okay, yeah, come on.

Stew Smith:  Hey, real quick in your comment section. What would you guys like to hear us talk about next week?

Jim Edwards:   I see what you’re doing there

Stew Smith:  Do you like that?

Jim Edwards:   Smart… I like it..

So let us know, what do you want us to talk about?

Otherwise, we’ll talk about what we want to talk about. It may not be what you want to talk about. But if you don’t tell us what you want to talk about, and we won’t talk about what you want.

Stew Smith:  [Laughter]

Jim Edwards: 

What I’m talking about.

Alright, cool.

Oh, Karlyn says the Hero’s Journey I love talking about the Hero’s Journey.

Stew Smith:  Oh, I love that one. That’s a classic

Jim Edwards:  That’s a good one.

Stew Smith:  That’s a good Jim and Stew show one.

Jim Edwards: Okay.

We’ll talk about the hero’s journey next week.

Nice.

Stew Smith:  Yeah, yeah.

Jim Edwards:  Well done. Karlyn.

All right.

And life rewards the fast actor too.

There’s a good example.

You might be sitting there thinking we will you know, what would I want?

Nah, we’re doing Hero’s Journey.

All right, everybody, have a great day, and we will talk to you soon.

Thanks, Stew. Great job.